


Failure

by lopingloup



Category: The Handmaid's Tale (TV), The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Handmaid's Tale Fusion, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Mpreg, M/M, No rape depicted just refrenced but i ticked Rape/Non-con to be safe, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Whump, handmaid's tale is its own warning, handmaids, mostly happy ending, not a/b/o
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 03:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21029348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lopingloup/pseuds/lopingloup
Summary: Abel is a failed Handmaid and he's had his red robes taken away. He now wears grey and this is his new post.





	Failure

**Author's Note:**

> Me being me, I've collected a new fandom so here, have a whumpy Handmaid's Tale one shot! :D Many, many thanks to my absolutely awesome beta Imperial_Dragon - you're amazing and your edits were *so* helpful <3 Any remaining mistakes all mine!
> 
> Note: Mpreg is implied in this but its not A/B/O - it's just kind of handwaved explained that some men can get pregnant ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Also i mix the show and the book together a bit here - i drew on Nick's flat above the garage as a setting but i call the Gilead soldiers Angels, which is what they're called in the book i think.
> 
> Hope you enjoy! And pls mind the warnings, as usual :)

This would be Abel’s fourth posting and it was obvious that they’d given up on him. He’d been stripped of the red robes that had marked him as fertile and useful, now he wore a uniform of pale grey, the colour of failure. Aunt Victoria didn’t escort him, and the car didn’t drive up to the main house but stopped at the fortified gate, manned by black-clad Angels on either side.

“Out,” the driver snapped, after Abel didn’t immediately move.

Abel startled and scrambled out of the door, his boots tangling in the new long grey coat he wore, hissing at the pain of his injuries. The driver laughed and barely waited for Abel to shut the door before accelerating off, back to Abel’s previous Commander.

Abel kept his chin up. He was less afraid this time, or else too tired to worry. At his first posting he’d been a ball of nerves, barely able to speak. He’d been afraid of what they’d do, and afraid, too, of losing himself. The Red Centre had almost succeeded at that. But he’d faced everything they’d thrown at him and there was still that small kernel inside him that, through everything, was still _him_. He’d watched others broken down into madness and mindless obedience, but many of them were just resigned and tired, as he was.

He drew in a breath and took a step towards the house with a wince. It would be a long walk up that drive and the lashes on the backs of his legs throbbed. But he straightened his shoulders and forced himself to start walking.

A hand grabbed his arm, startling him badly and making him flinch away. He was very rarely touched, not by his three previous Commanders, nor any other Handmaids. When he _was_ touched, it was only as a pre-cursor to violence, when he was grabbed and pinned down, or stung with an Aunts' cattle prod. 

A blank-faced Angel looked down at him. “Not that way,” he said, but he released Abel’s arm. 

Abel didn’t allow himself to rub it, but just nodded meekly. _Blessed are the meek_, the Aunts said in his head. He acknowledged it, but reminded himself that those weren’t his words.

“Sorry, sir,” he murmured. This was new to him and he didn’t know what they wanted this time. Did his grey outfit mean that he’d just be a servant, like a lower-level Martha? He’d seen a few others wearing these grey coats with the grey tunics beneath, but he’d never thought to ask who they were, what they did. The small cap he’d been given left his ears cold and dampened by the rain, but at least he didn’t have to turn his head like a blinkered horse every time he wanted to glance sideways. He’d worn the white wings around his face for so long that having a full range of vision whilst outside had been initially distracting and overwhelming, but was slowly beginning to feel normal again.

“Come on,” the Angel ordered and Abel hurried after him, eying the black rifle slung over the man’s shoulder. At least this Angel didn’t keep it constantly in his hands like some did.

Abel struggled to keep up as the Angel strode away from the house and down a side path, but the Angel checked over his shoulder and seemed to slow his pace a little to accommodate Abel. Abel, chewing his lip, didn’t dare to ask where they were going. The backs of his legs were stinging something awful where the whip had landed and he could feel the slide of wetness down his calf as the cuts reopened. It wasn’t the pain that worried him, but that he’d stain these new, pale clothes. At least the red robes hadn’t shown up any blood.

A blockish, two-storey building came into view, with the ground floor a darkly-painted and strangely windowless block where the second floor had a staircase up the side and two sets of windows. Abel frowned at it in confusion until he saw how the drive led up to a large pair of double doors at the building’s base and realised that it was a garage. The Angel led the way up the side staircase and Abel hesitated, unsure if he was supposed to follow. The Angel jammed a key in the lock and gave the door a shove as it dragged loudly across the floorboards. Finally noticing that Abel hadn’t followed, the Angel looked down at him and jerked his head.

“Get up here,” he said, firm but not harsh. Abel obeyed, climbing the stairs as quickly as the pain in his thighs would allow. A rough hand at his shoulder nudged him into the cool room above the garage. Abel stumbled forwards, keeping his gaze on the floor, which was old and uneven.

“Just stay there,” the Angel ordered. “And don’t touch anything. Okay?”

“Yes sir,” Abel said.

The Angel grunted and Abel heard him move to leave, before pausing. Abel tensed. “Get some water from the sink if you want it,” the Angel said. “Bathroom’s at the back.”

“Thank you, sir,” Abel managed, surprised by the consideration. The Angel left, dragging the door shut behind him and making all the windows rattle.

Abel released a shaky breath as he listened to the Angel descend the steps and march away. In the distance, a dog barked and a train trundled by. Compared to Before, the reduction in traffic had made everything so much quieter.

Very slowly setting his bag down on the floor, Abel sank down beside it with a grimace. He didn’t look around, focusing on the pain in his legs. He removed his long, grey coat, checking that he hadn’t bled on the back of it before he carefully folded it up. Glancing over at the door, with its small, half-shaded window, he untied the laces on his loose grey trousers and pushed them down to his knees, shivering in the cool air. Blood had stained the inside of the fabric but hadn’t yet soaked through. Touching the back of his thighs made him hiss, his hand coming away sticky.

He’d known that his previous post would be his last and he’d expected to be sent to the Colonies or Jezebels when he failed yet again to become pregnant. At that very last Ceremony, knowing that it was pointless and sick of being treated like an object, he’d finally lost his temper. He’d kicked that perverted, sterile, old bastard in the groin before he could get close and clawed the Commander’s wife’s arms when she’d screeched and tried to restrain him. The Aunts had had him whipped for that, but the Ceremony wasn’t forced on him again – even _they_ knew that the Commander must be infertile, or else something undetectable was wrong with Abel that he’d remained barren all this time.

Fumbling his bag open, he dug out a small packet of tissues and got the worst of the blood off his trousers, the back of his thighs and his hand, spitting into his palm to get rid of the tacky stain. He tried not to think about his last post, because it didn’t matter; he was here now. The Angel had told him not to touch anything, so he stuffed the tissues back in his bag and re-knotted his trousers, before settling to wait with his arms curled around his knees.

He had no way to tell the time, but he knew he’d missed lunch and that dinner wouldn’t be for some time. He resigned himself to a long wait, presumably for someone to collect him. Curling his coat around his shoulders, he tucked his cold fingers between his knees as he studied the room he’d been left in. The unmade double bed was at his back, the door directly in front of him, and there was a large sink to the right where someone could wash. The Angel had said he could drink from there if he wanted and Abel roused himself to wander over to it.

The tap was stiff and Abel winced at the squeak it made, glancing towards the door like he was doing something illicit. As he drank from his cupped hand, he noticed a razor left on the side and stared at it as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He hadn’t been left alone with anything sharp since Gilead had taken over. Marthas locked the knives cupboards at night and scissors were considered as contraband as pen and paper.

He picked it up without thinking, noticing small dark hairs caught between the blades and frowned. He set it back down after a moment with a glance at the door, wincing retrospectively at the thought of someone seeing him holding it.

He walked away, distancing himself from the blade he wasn’t allowed to touch and couldn’t allow himself to think about too much. He noticed four pairs of black socks laid out on the windowsill above a small heater and he held his hand over it hopefully. It wasn’t turned on and he didn’t dare flick the switch.

The room wasn’t exactly untidy but it _was_ lived in, he realised, which made a small knot of worry begin to form in Abel’s empty stomach. He hadn’t exactly feared living with a Commander and his wife again, because he knew that, knew the rhythms of a big house and how to vacate his mind during the Ceremony enough not to let it drive him mad. But he didn’t know who lived here, or why he’d had been left in this room. Was he to become a driver? A groundskeeper? Or would he _belong_ to one, owned again, but by someone less important and perhaps less careful? Or would he just live here, and be taken up to the house when they wanted him? The uncertainty ate at him even as he tried to ignore it and just breathe, smelling shaving soap.

He’d never needed to shave his face and he’d wondered longingly when he was younger what it would be like to have that bristled roughness on his jaw. It gave away men like him, men that could bear children, that they didn’t grow a beard, and were generally stockier around the shoulders and hips. He’d been noticed by Gileadean soldiers only hours after the regime took over and taken straight off the street. Unlike others, he never had the chance to say goodbye to his family.

Abel moved to sit back down on the floor, lost in his thoughts, and he was half-asleep when the door was violently shoved open. An overhead light was switched on, blinding him after the evening darkness the room had fallen into. Abel jerked upright like a puppet. Only two years of conditioning to avoid people’s gazes stopped him from looking up higher than the man’s chest. Black shoes, dark green trousers and a grey jacket – some kind of lower-level worker, but Abel didn’t know exactly what role.

Still, he scrambled clumsily to his feet, his coat sliding off his shoulders as he stood, and bowed his head.

“Blessed be the fruit,” he said.

“You’re the Grey, then.” The voice was low and rough and the man’s failure to follow the script put Abel instantly on guard.

Abel heard a sigh and clasped his hands in front of him, wary as the man came inside and shut the door, giving it a shove as it scraped the floorboards. He had to force himself to keep still and not take a step backwards, treading the line between appearing submissive but not fearful, even though he _was_ afraid.

“I’m Nathaniel,” the man said. “You got a name?”

This wasn’t on the script either and Abel swallowed around the thick lump in his throat. Not following protocol scared him. The men that acted like they were supposed to were bad enough, but at least Abel knew what to expect. The uncertainty was worse.

“Abel, sir.”

The man, Nathaniel, snorted. “You’re about the tenth Abel I’ve met. Running out of Bible names, are they?”

Abel didn’t know what to say, not in response to something that was borderline sacrilegious, so he just held himself very still and didn’t speak. If Nathaniel was an Eye and this was a test, Abel couldn’t find the right words to respectfully disagree and pretend his loyalty to the regime. Abel still hadn’t looked at the man’s face.

Nathaniel lifted a hand, to do what Abel didn’t know but he instinctively flinched, even as he tried to hold himself still.

“Look at me Abel.” Nathaniel spoke his name in two distinct syllables, like he was trying it out.

Abel looked up obediently, trying to keep his face blank. His last Commander had liked to see him flinch, deliberately catching him unaware or making sudden, jerky movements which left Abel trembling and with a new bruise on his hip, his rib, where he’d collided with a cabinet or the bathroom sink.

But Nathaniel didn’t look vindicated or smug. He was younger than his voice sounded, though he looked tired. His jaw was slightly uneven and his nose was crooked, like it’d been broken more than once, and, with his military-short hair, his height and his broad shoulders, he looked like someone who could hurt people, and had.

Still, he’d told Abel to look at him and so Abel kept his gaze up, even as he didn’t really look at Nathaniel’s face but slightly to the right. People said, ‘Look at me,’ but they didn’t mean real eye-contact like an equal would give. What they wanted was to see Abel’s face, to examine his expression so that they could try to find the defiance there, or the fear, or whatever they were looking for.

Abel couldn’t tell if Nathaniel found what he was looking for and Nathaniel didn’t say anything for a long moment.

“You hungry?” he said, and then didn’t pause before adding, “I’ll get something.” He turned to walk out and Abel opened his mouth, the words briefly stuck in his throat before he forced them out.

“Ah- sir?”

Nathaniel paused but didn’t turn around. “Yeah?”

“I’m allergic. To peanuts. I have medicine, but-”

“I know,” Nathaniel said. “I got a file on you.”

The room felt threateningly quiet and alien after Nathaniel had left. It was clearly Nathaniel’s space in a way that made Abel feel like an intruder, especially now that he’d met Nathaniel. It was also small enough that there was nowhere for Abel to go to get out of Nathaniel’s line of sight and it made Abel feel trapped, pinned like a fly caught in a glass.

He tried not think about Nathaniel having a file on him, or what his file said. It was possible that it was merely the dates of his posting and medical details – which would be condemning enough – but it would be even worse if it included character references and the punishments he’d had.

While waiting for Nathaniel’s return, Abel remained standing and didn’t touch anything. The Angel’s orders still remained since Nathaniel hadn’t contradicted them, and Abel didn’t want to disrupt anything when just his existence felt like disruption enough. Instead, he looked out of the dark windows. The sun was almost entirely set and once Abel’s eyes had adjusted to the over-head light, he’d realised that it wasn’t really very bright, casting deep shadows across the small room.

He smelled the food before he heard Nathaniel climb the stairs and his mouth watered. He couldn’t help but be grateful that Nathaniel had realised Abel would be hungry and gone to fetch him something without forcing Abel to ask, or making him wait for breakfast. There was still time for the night to take a different turn and Abel forced himself not to have any particular hopes for how Nathaniel would act, but not having an empty stomach would make it easier.

“Sit down somewhere,” Nathaniel said brusquely as he came through the stiff door backwards, a bowl in each hand.

Abel glanced around and then sat on the floor again. The bed was too personal and the only chair in the room was occupied with clothes. Nathaniel kicked the door shut, handing him a bowl before, to Abel’s surprise, sitting down opposite him.

Abel still kept his gaze respectfully lowered. When Nathaniel didn’t take the lead with a prayer out loud, he lowered his head further and clasped his hands to pray silently.

“Amen,” Abel murmured when he’d finished numbly recited one of the state-approved prayers in his head, only to realise that Nathaniel was already eating. He tried to keep the surprise off his face as he lifted the warm bowl into his lap, eying what looked like reheated stew, a hunk of bread soaking against the side. He dug in hungrily, taking less care over his manners than usual when his furtive glances in Nathaniel’s direction indicated that the man wasn’t paying him any attention at all.

The stew was hot and delicious and Abel ate it much too fast, saving the bread to wipe around the bowl.

“Least you’ve got an appetite,” Nathaniel said and Abel, lost in the act of eating and his own thoughts, jumped so badly that the bowl fell off his lap with a loud clatter. It was practically empty so nothing spilled and the thick clay didn’t break but Abel still froze, not sure how much it would take to make this man angry. But Nathaniel just muttered, “You’re jumpy,” before he picked the bowl up and got to his feet with a quiet groan.

“God I’m getting old,” he said. Abel froze at the casual blasphemy but Nathaniel didn’t even seem to notice his slip and just carried on speaking, “Change for bed, Grey,” he said as he moved away to deposit the bowls on the side. “No-one’s lookin’.”

“Yessir,” Abel murmured and set about digging his sleep things out of his bag. He undressed with his back to Nathaniel and didn’t check whether the man was watching or not because he couldn’t do anything about it if he was.

But when he was done and turned around, his grey tunic clutched to his chest, he found Nathaniel at the sink, about to brush his teeth and showing no interest in Abel. Abel’s shoulders relaxed fractionally and he crouched with a wince to put his things away in his bag before taking his turn at the sink.

Nathaniel’s eyes were on him as he hesitated by the side of the bed, not sure what was wanted from him or if he was even allowed to share the bed.

“What’re you waiting for?” Nathaniel said suddenly. “Bed’s not gonna bite you.”

“Sorry sir,” Abel said and got in, though he kept as far away from the taller man as possible. He wouldn’t resist Nathaniel, but he refused to seem willing.

There was a lamp turned on at the side of the bed and Nathaniel, sitting up with his back to the bed’s headboard, hadn’t yet turned it off. Abel stayed sitting up as well, trying and failing to anticipate the dark-haired man’s next move.

Nathaniel turned to look at him and Abel instantly dropped his gaze, before he realised that he was then looking at Nathaniel’s bare chest and instead looked to the right. The man was attractive, but Abel refused to allow himself to properly register it. It’d been an unspoken rule during Ceremonies that to get hard was to disrespect the Commander’s wife, and disrespect God. The act of begetting children wasn’t supposed to be enjoyed, not in Gilead.

Abel didn’t know if Nathaniel was supposed to be trying to get Abel with child or if Abel was just supposed to a helpmate, since he’d failed to prove fertile these last two years. Even as Abel finally permitted himself to wonder what his role would be here, Nathaniel answered his question.

“I’m supposed to be fucking you,” Nathaniel said.

Abel tensed, and then tried to relax. He had lube in his bag and he started trying to think how best he could get Nathaniel to use it, and to use it properly. It’d been a while and Nathaniel might be eager. But Nathaniel stopped his thoughts of practicalities even before they’d properly started.

“But I fucking doubt you want that, and no-one going to question why you’re not knocked up after two years of failing-” Abel cringed. _Failed_. Nathaniel, to Abel’s surprise and unease, noticed. “Bad choice of words.” Abel blinked at the roundabout apology. “It all gets blamed on you handmaids, I get it, but most of us are infertile now, alright? Whatever bullshit they’ve fed you.” Nathaniel paused and Abel could feel Nathaniel looking at him like he wanted a response. “I’m not going to touch you, understand?” he prompted.

Abel quickly nodded, though he said only, “Sir.” What Nathaniel had said could get him killed, but Abel was still his subordinate, and if Nathaniel’s deviant beliefs meant that he didn’t want to fuck Abel then Abel would agree all he had to.

There was a moment of silence where Abel tried to think what he ought to be saying before Nathaniel just sighed.

“Alright, whatever,” he said, and reached to turn out the light. The bed shifted as Nathaniel settled down and Abel hesitantly copied him. “I can’t tell if you’re properly broken, kid, but if you aren’t, shit works differently here. The Commander’s not evil like the rest of them, and I’m not so scary either.”

The covers moved as Nathaniel rolled over and Abel exhaled, turning the man’s words around his head. Could Nathaniel be an Eye? But no Eye would talk like that, surely, even to goad someone else into damning themselves.

“Try to sleep,” Nathaniel said. In the dark, it was easier to forget Nathaniel’s physicality and his rough voice sounded less threatening. “You’ll see everything tomorrow.”

Abel didn’t know that he believed Nathaniel. It seemed too good for someone like him, someone who’d failed. But he also didn’t see why Nathaniel would lie.

“Goodnight, sir,” he murmured hesitantly, some five minutes later.

There was a brief pause, heavy in the dark and then, “G’night Abel.”

Abel lay on his back, staring up at the dark ceiling and blinking back tears. His thighs stung where they were pressed against the sheets but he hardly noticed. He’d not had someone wish him goodnight in so long and it made his chest ache. Hope was dangerous, but perhaps this posting would be different.

**Author's Note:**

> Wellllll, any thoughts?? What did you think of Abel and Nathaniel?? Hope you liked!! Comments and concrit very welcome :)


End file.
